Neither mentioned their bitter 1992 Democratic presidential primary which propelled Clinton to the White House and Brown back to local politics nor did they allude to the Californian’s crack last month about the former president’s affair with Monica Lewinsky.

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Instead, on a cool-for-California night in a floodlit UCLA quad, the two old rivals vied to out-flatter the other. There was little personal warmth in their words, and only fleeting personal contact, but they each intimated a sort of grudging respect for a fellow political survivor who remained in the arena.

“I am so grateful to Jerry Brown that, you know, we’re not very far apart in age we’ve been doing this a long time — he still cares about your future,” said Clinton, 64, who was first elected Arkansas governor in 1978.

“He didn’t retire to Palm Springs to play golf — he’s out there doing stuff,” said Brown, 72, first elected California governor in 1975, of Clinton. Ticking off the former president’s work on AIDS and disaster relief, Brown added: “He’s a guy who’s mobilizing the highest spirit, the angels of our better spirits.”

Neither, in other words, has to still be doing what they are doing in public life. Yet both had specific incentives for appearing with the other. For Clinton, it was a chance for him to demonstrate that his extensive political travel this year is not just about re-paying those supporters of his wife’s presidential campaign and that he’s matured into more of an elder statesman who’s bigger than any longstanding feud. Brown had a more direct interest — polls show Clinton is the most popular political figure of the moment and therefore the former president could help bolster his candidacy.

But as they demonstrated in their speeches before a student-heavy crowd of a few thousand, each also just enjoys the political game.

Introduced by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, the far younger Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, as someone who could be writing the story of his life right now instead of trying to get elected governor again, Brown made clear he wasn’t interested in retirement.

“One thing you can count on: I’m not writing any damn memoir,” Brown, now the state attorney general, said to laughs. “Because if I said all the interesting stuff, I couldn’t keep running for office.”

And in the course of endorsing Newsom, his putative rival for the gubernatorial nomination, Brown couldn’t help but tweak the handsome, 43-year-old San Franciscan.

“He’s ok, he’s smart but, by the way, I know he’s pretty, but I want to tell you when I was his age I had more hair than he did,” said the balding gubernatorial hopeful.

In addition to the ribbing of his latest intra-party rival, Brown, in his rapid-fire rhetorical style, bounded from rattling off statistics about the Golden State to taking shots at his Republican gubernatorial rival, former eBAY CEO Meg Whitman.

Just over two weeks from Election Day, the Democrat enjoys a single-digit lead in every public poll. Despite facing an unprecedented barrage of $140 million against the self-funding Whitman and running something of a lackluster campaign, Brown has emerged as the frontrunner — and seems to be enjoying himself.